Length of social-media messages proportional to public events: Study

A new study published by researchers in MIIT's Senseable City Lab has revealed that the length of social-media messages grows shorter on social networking websites during major public events.

The study has revealed that as the volume of the messages increased during any important public event such as during elections, sporting events, or weather incidents, people tend to send out a flurry of messages on social media sites such as Twitter, which are shorter in length.

Director of the Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti said that the way people respond to things during public events becomes faster and more impulsive.

In order to conduct the study, the researchers took data from various social media sites like Twitter at a variety of moments and analyzed the length of posts.

Ratti and a researcher at the Senseable City Lab Michael Szell have written a new paper about the study 'Contraction of online response to major events' as coauthors.